Before being named director of the McGill University School of Social Work in 2005, Wendy Thomson had spent four years working at Number 10 Downing Street for British Prime Minister Tony Blair as head of the Labour government's Office of Public Services Reform. She was also Blair's senior advisor on social policy.

In what is being billed as a world first, a Canadian couple has given birth to a little girl who was conceived through a two-step, test-tube method that could herald the next revolution in baby making. Researchers at the McGill Reproductive Centre say the baby, now a healthy 10-month-old, is the first baby in the world known to be born of an egg that had not only been frozen, but that had never ripened inside of a woman. The process allowed the mother to undergo in vitro fertilization without taking standard fertility drugs.

A virus is causing mass die-offs of fish in the Great Lakes, the world's largest freshwater fishery. The virus is one of nearly 200 alien species that have invaded the region. Anthony Ricciardi, professor of environmental science at McGill, co-writes in an op-ed in the Globe & Mail that a national strategy is needed to address the issue of alien species. "We need to develop biosecurity programs to identify and eliminate the vectors that deliver alien species to our country. We must also increase our capacity to detect new threats early and determine appropriate emergency responses."